So you made a contact with new client. Now you have to undestand what the client wants. In most of the cases clients have just a slightly idea what they need. This is why you need to ask the right question and get the exact idea of what the clients wants.

In order to learn what exactly the clients want, you can use hyptoihetical questions like “Would you be interested in…?”, “Would you like your site to look like this…?”, “How would you fell about that…” and so on. This kind of questions are putting the client into hypothetical situations and it becomes easy for him to share his ideas. In other words – pure brainstorming. On the other hand it will be easy for you, as a freelancer, to present the best offer,. It’s win-win, not a win-lose and the client will feel more confident about your involvement in the project he wants to hire you for.

When to ask these questions?

It’s good to ask these hypothetical questions at the very beginning of the negotiations. It’s a great opportunity to understand how the client sees things, what the expectations are and what is the possible time frame for finishing the project. If the clients wants things to get done fast, than you must ask about an additional fee for the fast work in case that time and money are very important to you at that time.

Depending on what’s most important for you as a freelance, you can ask different kind of questions. We can’t predict them all but in almost all-case scenarios the keywords you’ll be looking for are “What” and “If”. Use them smart and you will have the best first freelance date with a client.

We’re curios to know about your experience on first dates with freelance clients. If you have interesting stories to tell, feel welcome to share them in the comments.